While trying to find a bit of info about the Army Cuts announcement yesterday I came across a lovely little article in the Telegraph...

"For those who have a passion for dressing up in military uniforms and messing around with guns, joining the Territorial Army has traditionally been the best way of playing at soldiers without having to make any of the commitment and sacrifice demanded by the regular Army.

Come Friday afternoon, rather than spending a mundane weekend doing the family shopping or providing a free taxi service for the children, the irregulars of the TA pack their bags and head for an all-expenses-paid jolly, running around the woods in combat fatigues firing guns. Their hard day&#8217;s war-gaming done, they then get to hang out with people with similar interests, make friends and even develop long-term relationships (a significant proportion of Britain&#8217;s 14,000 active weekend soldiers are female).

As one reservist recently blogged about the TA: &#8220;It has got to be the best thing I have done in my life. You get to do so many things that you can&#8217;t do in civilian life &#8211; and you get paid for it!&#8221;

Apart from the occasional weekend at training camps, there is also the annual two-week training camp abroad in places such as Cyprus, Gibraltar, Albania, Corsica and the US &#8211; all on the MoD&#8217;s account.

When it comes to getting this merry band of weekend soldiers to do some fighting, it is another story. Defenders of the TA say that more than half of reservists have been deployed in Britain&#8217;s decade-long involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the proportion of those who actually make a telling contribution is relatively modest. &#8220;I reckon that only one in 10 members of the TA are actually worth bothering with,&#8221; a senior officer in the regular Army told me recently. &#8220;The rest are just in it for a bit of fun at the weekend, and are horrified when you suggest you want them to go somewhere dangerous, like southern Afghanistan.&#8221;

As a female, married to another member of the TA who has been in 8 years (during which time I have only had one camp abroad to sunny Germany) and who returned from southern Afghanistan only last year, I find this article rather offensive...

While trying to find a bit of info about the Army Cuts announcement yesterday I came across a lovely little article in the Telegraph...

"For those who have a passion for dressing up in military uniforms and messing around with guns, joining the Territorial Army has traditionally been the best way of playing at soldiers without having to make any of the commitment and sacrifice demanded by the regular Army.

Come Friday afternoon, rather than spending a mundane weekend doing the family shopping or providing a free taxi service for the children, the irregulars of the TA pack their bags and head for an all-expenses-paid jolly, running around the woods in combat fatigues firing guns. Their hard day&#8217;s war-gaming done, they then get to hang out with people with similar interests, make friends and even develop long-term relationships (a significant proportion of Britain&#8217;s 14,000 active weekend soldiers are female).

As one reservist recently blogged about the TA: &#8220;It has got to be the best thing I have done in my life. You get to do so many things that you can&#8217;t do in civilian life &#8211; and you get paid for it!&#8221;

Apart from the occasional weekend at training camps, there is also the annual two-week training camp abroad in places such as Cyprus, Gibraltar, Albania, Corsica and the US &#8211; all on the MoD&#8217;s account.

When it comes to getting this merry band of weekend soldiers to do some fighting, it is another story. Defenders of the TA say that more than half of reservists have been deployed in Britain&#8217;s decade-long involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the proportion of those who actually make a telling contribution is relatively modest. &#8220;I reckon that only one in 10 members of the TA are actually worth bothering with,&#8221; a senior officer in the regular Army told me recently. &#8220;The rest are just in it for a bit of fun at the weekend, and are horrified when you suggest you want them to go somewhere dangerous, like southern Afghanistan.&#8221;

As a female, married to another member of the TA who has been in 8 years (during which time I have only had one camp abroad to sunny Germany) and who returned from southern Afghanistan only last year, I find this article rather offensive...

This article has managed to offend me four times in different places so far today, perhaps, as far as Arrse appearances are concerned, some threads could be combined/the search engine employed before we flood the engine of the outrage bus?

Cabana - If you are a member of the TA and this does not offend you then you are clearly one of those inneffective TA soldiers who are not worth bothering with that the article refers to.

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No, I am not a stab, I was a regular (real Army to you). If you are offended by some fuckwit typing a load of shit, I suggest you think again about being a stab (or a regular for that matter), because there will be a lot of people who like to try to offend you for being a soldier, regular or otherwise. Take your period outrage elsewhere.

the annual two-week training camp abroad in places such as Cyprus, Gibraltar, Albania, Corsica and the US

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In my day we thought ourselves lucky to get Sennybridge and Otterburn

p.s. Now, now! Play nicely with each other

Edited to say, Um, yes, I'd probably have been a bit hacked off at the time (aged 18 ) to be sent off to Mesopotamia to be used for target practice by a bunch of ragheads.
I do remember thinking at the time that, had that happened, we'd need a bit of solid concentrated training - well, I would have anyway.

As a female, married to another member of the TA who has been in 8 years (during which time I have only had one camp abroad to sunny Germany) and who returned from southern Afghanistan only last year, I find this article rather offensive...

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Not sure how stating that you are female and a relatively recent returnee from HERRICK gives you anymore right to be more outraged than the next bloke. Whilst the beginning of the article is, at worst, just a bit silly you miss the main thrust of the article. Perhaps you could put away your indignant rage at having the piss taken and discuss what he's REALLY talking about; a fundamental restructuring of the TA, how the **** we're going to recruit 50% more Reservists and how, culturally and legislatively, we can change the way the UK uses its Reserve Forces?

Nah, **** it, stick to bleating about how you've been misrepresented, it's a whole lot easier.